Not What It Seems
by Oh Mina Obscener
Summary: Rating is just to be safe. Please r&r. A little bit of blood, so just be warned if that kind of thing bothers you. Kates POV.
1. Default Chapter

Disclaimer: Lost and all it's awesome plots are that of ABC and JJ Abrams. Nothing but the actual writing here is mine.

Authors Note: I'm Baaack!

Not What It Seems. Chapter One

"Jack... Let me go." Was Boone's choked request. A request that sends chills up my spine and tears to the back of my eyes. I choked back a sob. Jack looks horrified, and I try to read his eyes. They are blue orbs of fear. The fear of losing Boone? Yes. And the fear of being the one to take off the bandages which held back the torrent of crimson that was Boone's blood. Afraid of the guilt. And of the responsibility he could not escape.

Boone's deathly pale face covered in dried blood and dried sweat sickened my stomach and tore at my heart. I didn't want Boone to die. But this. This was too much. Tears ran down my face, falling onto leaves at my feet. This was too much.

"Kate." Jack said to me, approaching me. His bloodied hand was on the back of my head, stroking my hair almost desperately.

I met his gaze. "I'm thinking of letting him... of letting him go."

"No..." I mutter, my voice seeming strange and alien to my ears. There are people standing around us, watching Boone suffering a ways away, their faces portraits of concern.

"Will he be alright?" One woman nearly shouts. Jack ignores her and continues to look at me intently.

"Kate. Look at him." I close my eyes instead.

"If we were anywhere else, if I had the right kind of pain relievers... If I could put him out and operate on him then maybe... But we have no idea the kind of pain he's in. He's been conscious nearly an hour now... I don't think there's anything I can do. _I can't save him_." Those words would always echo in my nightmares.

I understand this, but I don't understand why he's telling this to _me_. There's nothing I can do. He's the doctor. I don't have a say in it. But then I look at his face and I realize he just wants me to OK it. He knows what he has to do. He just needs me to alleviate some of the smothering guilt.Some of the pain. Jack can't stand being the bad guy.

I nod.

Jack nods. He looks at all the expectant people and grimaces. The people who know the doctor will save him. The people who don't realize that Boone is in incredible pain and that his insides are a twisted, bleeding mess. I look in Boone's eyes where he lays. They are begging for release. I turn away. Oh god no. Jack kneels down and kisses his forehead. And unravels the bandage over his ravaged abdomen. Shannon sobs uncontrollably and grips her brother's hand while he fades. Sayid holds her violently shaking shoulders. The people murmur sadly and turn away.

I run.

I run until my legs beg me to stop. I run until there is no breath to speak of left in my lungs and I gasp in short gulps while collapsing on sand. Hot sand that nearly scalds my sin. But I do not notice. I put my face into it and my tears sizzle. Darkness envelopes me, and I take my place among the elements. Just being.

When I wake I am finally aware of the uncomfortable singe my skin has taken on from passing out on hot, midday sand. But I am not in the sun. A warm breeze ruffles my dark curls and I crack my eyes open hopefully.

"Look who's up. Finally decided to join me in the land of the living, freckles?" Memory floods back. That's the beauty of fainting. You can leave the world and your pain entirely for a time and not even with the plague of dreams. But then, it still hurts just as badly when you return. Sawyer's comment about the land of the living was a slap in the face. Only worse. I remembered Boone vividly and the look on his face as he... died. Peace after a storm of screaming nerves and ripped skin. Tears stain my eyes.

"Would you mind telling me why I had to haul your sorry ass all the way back here?" Sawyer says with dry humor.

"Sawyer." I say. "Boone is dead."

His head snaps up from his book and he lets it drop onto the ground.

"What?"

"He died. He was with Locke and ..I guess he fell. He died not an hour ago."

Sawyer looks shocked, and he stares out at the ocean. Then, to my surprise, he holds out his arms for me. Not wanting to offend him or discourage him from this rare act of his, I comply by moving into his quiet embrace. I find silent tears sliding down my cheeks. Sawyer rubs his hands up and down my back until I feel the tears stop and a contented numbness cover my body. A hum fills my ears. All of a sudden I feel him pushing me away gently. I look up at him, but he is staring strait ahead with a look of shock on his face. It turns to anger. I turn around and see Boone, healthy as a horse, striding across the beach. I stare in shock, my mouth open, while I feel Sawyer get up and walk away.

"I suppose you think that's funny?" He said. And then he was gone. I stare after him and then after Boone. Deciding we were both seeing things, because I had just witnessed Boone die, I ran after him. He had gone to see Shannon. I kept my distance, listening to him argue quietly with her about what appeared to be some trivial item, I walked back across the beach.. I was going mad. He really was there, Alive. And healthy. I felt dizzy. Jack. Where was Jack...

TBC


	2. It's Raining, It's Pouring

Chapter two.

A/N: I decided to make it raining as hard on the island as it is in my backyard at the moment for this chapter. (Disclaimer on chapter one applies throughout)

I was soaked. There was no denying it. Every piece if fabric I was wearing was drenched as if I had jumped in the ocean. The rain was coming down in torrents, like everyone in heaven had simultaneously pulled the bathtub plug. There was no escaping it on the beach either. It found its way through the jungle leaves and ran in little streams through the sand to the ocean like it was low tide. Beads of water collected and dripped off my eyelashes.

I had come from the beach to the caves for shelter, and found little. The rain was pounding at a slant and driving into the caves where it created mud when it mixed inevitably with the dirt.

"What a mess." I mumbled.

"Gorgeous." She answered me. I had almost forgotten she was in the cave behind me.

"What do you mean, gorgeous? Look at this mud, Kate!" I say, lifting my shoe. It makes a sucking noise and the mud reluctantly snaps away from the sole of my boot. She smiles at me.

"That's you though isn't it?" She replies carelessly, shifting her gaze from me to the bruised sky.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I ask her quietly, drawn in.

"Always seeing the worst of something. You look at the mud on the ground, not the breathtaking sight in the sky. Look at the color of it. You can hear thunder. Feel the rain on your face. It feels good. Makes me laugh."

I look at her like she's crazy, but then I think of what she said. I always see the worst of something? By that she meant her. That I saw the worst in her and wrote her off. But I didn't.

"Kate." I said. " We all have a past. None of them are spotless." She glares at me.

"No, no they aren't." She replies before I can say what I mean to, and she gets up and walks away.

I follow her.

She slips through the brush without direction, but soon I realize she's leading us to the golf course. When she gets there she climbs the little slope and looks over the grassy expanses. Then she holds out her arms to the sky and spins several times, her face up to meet the rain. I wish I shared her spiritual enthusiasm. Instead I worry about lighting.

Suddenly her arms drop, and her face falls. She sinks to the ground on her knees and looks up at me as if seeing me for the first time. I almost expect her to say.. "Who are you?"

But instead she says, "You were there. You saw it. Im not crazy."

"His glasses are a bit funny looking, but a work of craftsmanship, I have to admit." Shannon tells Sayid. They sit around their small fire talking about nothing in particular, hoping the tarp above them doesn't spring a leak. Sayid had fastened it tightly to the sticks that held it up when he saw the ominous clouds rolling in that morning. Shannon was glad. Now they were dry and warm. She smiled to herself, thinking she was the luckiest (and driest) one on the island, resting in Sayid's arms.

"Well I did the best I could, but what Jack gave me to work with were rather lopsided and awkward when put together." Sayid replied. Shannon laughed softly at the memory of seeing Sawyer look up at her passing from his reading with one half-moon side and one much larger, rounder lens. She snuggled down comfortably, becoming drowsy in the warmth of his embrace.

The makeshift shelter's door flap whipped open, and Boone strode in, looking upset.

"I thought I told you to stay away from my sister."

"Boone!" Shannon said angrily, jumping up.

"You stay out of this, Shannon." Boone warned her.

"No! This is my... tent... and you have no right to just come bursting- "

A rough shove sent Shannon tumbling backwards into the ground. Sayid let out an angry yell and stepped up to Boone.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"Taking my sister with me, away from you." Boone spat, reaching for Shannon's hand which she did not extend out to him.

"Leave, Boone." She said shakily.

"You heard her." Sayid said cooly. "Leave."

"No. Shannon, come _on_!" Boone reached down to take her by the arm but Sayid quickly intercepted him. He pulled him back to face him and indicated for him to leave. Rain pounded on the little shelter. Boone and Sayid's heads grazed the top.

"Sayid. I'm warning you. My sister is coming with me to the caves. She is not staying with you and I–" He stopped short, and then drew back his fist quickly.

Shannon gasped as Boone punched Sayid. He took a step or two back, grasping at his jaw with one hand. Looking back up at Boone, Sayid brought his fist into sharp contact just under Boone's left eye. Shannon whimpered and yelled for Boone to go. He did, but not without an angry glance at her, leaving the tarp door flapping in the wind and rain in his wake. Sayid finally reached forward, fastening it back into place.

"I'm sorry about that, Shannon." He said, pulling her to her feet. She nods. He ran his fingers through her hair, pushing it back behind her ears and tracing her lips softly. When they kissed, they dropped slowly back onto the ground in a heap of entwined limbs.

Kate tells me a very elaborate, emotional story. She tells me of Boone dying, and of the things I did to try and prevent it. But it had been inevitable. What I found most disturbing was how accurate her description of the medical process I went through trying to save him was. How did her non-medical-school-graduate mind conjure this? And she was so upset. So sure it had happened. I don't know wether it was the look in her eyes, pleading with me to tell her I remember this too, (which I don't) or if it was the cooling temperature of the rain, but it gave me the chills.

I had seen Boone this morning. So had she. She thought for sure she was going crazy.

And I thought maybe she was.

TBC


End file.
